Month: November 2007

.....Not only that -- yes we know about google docs and all the other online word processors out there -- it also allows you to go offline while editing your documents and sync when you get back online. All this is done through the magic of Google Gears browser plugin (Thanks G). So throw away that old copy of MS Office, uninstall it off your harddrive and start using Zoho Writer. While you're at it you might also want to send them a "thank you" note for taking another MS shackle off your computer/ankle :-). More details + movie....

Speaking of hand tracking, here is a video of a guy playing around with an unknown system (looks a bit like linux). Very cool demo and almost perfect tracking. Not sure if it's IR or not, you can see him in the corner of the screen, but can't quite tell how it's done. Anyways, I'm posting it since it's one of the better ones I've seen. From the description:A C++ computer vision application to emulate the mouse and the keyboard in any application using hand gestures and a low-cost webcam.

Great tutorial video by Johnny Lee from Carnegie Mellon University showing how using an IR LED array and some reflective tape, you can track fingers in thin air using the Wii Remote. Great alternative to those FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) tables.

If you've been tuned into Digital Cinema Projection for the past couple of years, you'd know that when it comes to 4K projection (4Kx2K image), sony's SXRD series was pretty much the only game in town. DLP is limited to 2K and most of the projectors out there (Christie, Barco, NEC) are all 2K projectors. A downside of Sony's projector is that although it is as hefty as a small car it only has a 2000:1 contrast ratio (measured less than that calibrated). Its rated aggresively for 40ft screens which is not nearly big enough for true cinema applications.That was true until JVC announced their 1.27-inch 4Kx2K D-ILA (Direct-drive Image Light Amplifier) chip at InfoComm 2007. The chip can produce a 4096x2400 pixel image with a 20,000:1 contrast ratio. That's nearly 10x the…

I've been trying to figure out a way to do this on the cheap for a long time and I finally figured it out today. This process allows you to grab HDV from a HDV Camera via firewire, feed it into linux, transcode the 25Mb/s mpeg-ts stream to a 4 Mb/s mpeg4 stream (inside a TS). This mpeg4 stream in turn can be viewed at full resolution (1920x1080) on a remote client running just vlc. Here is the prerequisites:A decent machine with working Firewire port (anything from the past 2-3 years should do). Laptops might work as well although I have not tried it yet. My machine is a Athlon 4200+ w/ 2GB of RAM and a 512 MB NVIDIA 7900.Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) installation CD.4-pin to 6-pin Firewire cable.HDV…

Here is a quick way to enable full path display in the finder windows under Leopard. You can turn this on by issuing the following two commands in a terminal window:defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YESkillall FinderYou can also undo this effect by issuing the following two commands in a terminal window:defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool NOkillall Finder

It's official, Avid will not have a exhibit booth during NAB2008. According to the Press Release Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced that it will introduce a major shift in its approach to serving industry professionals in the digital content creation, management, and distribution industries. Based on extensive market research, Avid plans to announce a series of customer-focused initiatives in 2008 – all of which will be designed to make it easier for customers, prospects and the media to interact with the company. The company said it would reveal the full details of its 2008 plan to the public in February, which will set the stage for a blitz of new user-community initiatives, technical support programs, highly-personalized events, and innovative product announcements throughout the year. The company also announced…

So now that I have a basic OSC receiver for aka.iPhone's XY controller, I've been going through Apple's Demo Compositions -- under /Developer/Examples/Quartz Composer/Compositions -- and adding my portion of the OSC receiver to them. Here is the latest one, akaRemote-Caterpillar, which is a adaptation of "Caterpillar.qtz" under /Developer/Examples/Quartz Composer/Compositions/Interactive. Again I need to remind you to read the first Article to get started and that these QC compositions are for Leopard/QC3.0 only and require a jailbroken Ipod Touch or iPhone.

I assume you know what aka.iPhone is and what it does. If you don't please see this article over at Create Digital Motion. I've got aka.iPhone 2.1 installed on my ipod touch and while I enjoyed playing around with the accompanying MAX/MSP patch -- via the free runtime -- I wanted to see if I could get it working with Quartz Composer.Well here are my two (akaRemote, akaRemote-Particle) attempts at QC compositions that work really well with the XY controller of aka.iPhone. The XY Controller surface is the only thing I've been able to get working with QC, since Masayuki Akamatsu (the author of aka.iPhone) tends to use the same basic "/event" OSC message with a custom number of arguments. The limitations is actually in QC in that you can…